On November 3rd, the People, the 99 percent, will hold A People’s Hearing of Goldman Sachs in Liberty Square Park and march on Goldman Sachs! The people will bring to justice perhaps the single most egregious perpetrator of economic fraud and corruption in the United States. The Hearing will include testimonials from individuals directly affected by Goldman’s fraudulent manipulation of financial markets, including victims of housing foreclosures, pension losses, public lay-offs and untenable student debt.

The proceedings will also include expert analysis from Ralph Nader, Cornel West and Chris Hedges. Following the 99-minute hearing the people will decide on a fair and deliverable verdict via our own process of consensus-based direct democracy – and we intend to deliver it ourselves – to the headquarters of Goldman Sachs at 200 West Street, eight blocks from Liberty Square. We will ask for something our judicial and legislative systems have so far failed to deliver – the return of billions of taxpayer dollars to the 99 percent and criminal sentences for those Goldman Sachs executives who carried out the fraud. The event will be broadcast live via the Occupy Wall Street Livestream, among other public media outlets.

The People’s Hearing will examine the collapse of regulations and political and economic controls that permitted Goldman Sachs to loot the U.S. Treasury. It will look at how we came to live in a country where it became impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. It will ask why Goldman Sachs was allowed to enrich itself not only at the expense of millions of small investors but through its control of the bailouts and the regulatory process. It will demand to know why Goldman Sachs, one of the prime culprits in the destruction of the global economy, is permitted to continue to bankrupt countries such as Greece, creating massive human suffering, without oversight or control. The People’s Hearing will finally give Goldman Sach’s victims a voice.

Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi described Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
The broad outlines of Goldman Sachs’ massive fraud are well documented. It put together a collaterized debt obligation (CDO) from mortgage-backed securities that the company assumed would fail. It sold these CDOs as assets and secure investments to pension and mutual funds as well as institutions and banks while betting against them through credit default swaps (CDS). A credit default swap, or CDS, is an insurance policy where the issuer makes up a loss if an asset goes bad. Goldman Sachs, in essence, sold toxic garbage to investors and when this garbage was exposed as garbage, wiping out tens of millions of individual investors who had put away money for retirement or college, Goldman Sachs raked in money from insurers. AIG, which insured these worthless CDOs, lacked sufficient funds to pay Goldman Sachs during the financial meltdown of 2008, a meltdown that evaporated some $ 40 trillion in worldwide wealth. Goldman Sachs, with numerous former officials ensconced in the Treasury department and government, simply looted the U.S. Treasury to pay itself. And they are sitting on our money to this day.

The firm has committed numerous acts of fraud that extend beyond our shores. Goldman Sachs was instrumental in helping Greek authorities hide its mounting government budget deficit by selling swaps to the Greek government in return for future revenue streams. The Greek government was able through this arrangement to mask the loan which would have raised its budget deficit above euro zone limits. The sleights of hand now threaten to see Greece go into default and could trigger a massive banking crisis through Europe. The crisis has seen the Greek government unleash draconian austerity measures that are taken out on the backs of students, the poor and the working class. Goldman Sachs is a global criminal syndicate.

Goldman Sachs, while its victims suffer from foreclosures and bankruptcy, has set aside $ 10 billion in compensation and bonuses for its chief executives this year. These bonuses are being paid out even as Goldman Sachs dismissed 1,300 employees with another 1,000 employees expected to lose their jobs by the end of the year. No one is safe from our oligarchic elite, not even the underlings at Goldman Sachs. We invite the newly unemployed from Goldman Sachs to join us.

The median paycheck in the United States, even while these corporate heads pulled in salaries that often equate to $ 900,000 an hour, fell by 1.2 percent to $ 26,364. The number of poor and unemployed is swelling while the number of Americans making $ 1 million or more climbed to 94,000, a 20 percent increase from 2009. Corporate profits now account for 88 percent of all income growth while wages account for 1 percent. The top one percent has, through fraud and the corporate control of the judiciary and regulatory agencies, accounted for about half of all income growth since the 1970s.

How is it possible that in a democracy the bottom 99 percent sees only half of economic growth? How is it possible that the economy does not work on behalf of the 99 percent? How is it possible that financial swindlers and liars continue to run our economy and our government?

No one is to be tortured. It will be enough torture for them to have their stolen wealth taken away and put on an equal financial level with everyone that they have been looking down on for decades. All we need to do is spread the money around. After we all eat, we can start voting.

The marshall law plan was written up by George Bush part too as far as I remember. They have every little move planned out decades ahead of time. I believe that OWS is corporate sponsered. How else would it spread SO fast and continue in every city? The companies want to see who opposes them, who knows what is going on, who cares, and who needs to be eliminated. As long as it stays chaotic and peaceful, it can be controlled easily. The companies want the general public disarmed and peaceful. Easy to pick up one at a time and take away to experiment on, or to do whatever they wish. The idea that non-violence is the only way, comes from the companies. As long as you are not willing to defend yourself, you make a perfect slave.

you are a Communist! they've worked hard to make it to wall street and make money! just bc you cant get a job and you want to be spoon feed like a baby doesnt make it right for you to take hard earned money away from them and give it to yourself. yall say you want people to have more freedom and do what ever you want? well maybe the people in wall street want to be there and make money why are you allowed to take away their freedom and stop them from what they are doing ? no one has stopped OWS from standing outside yelling at people... yall say you dont want large cooperation but how would yall be able to make this wedsite or make videos wear cloths yall are just a bunch of lazy bums that dont want to work and just want to be spoon feed for the rest of your lifes. this is coming from a college class in NC

Great response that lacks any substance at all. There is plenty of evidence out there about what GS and many other companies did. But keep trying to defend them with your blatant ignorance and refusal to learn it.

Provide some sourcing SwissMiss instead of simply throwing out the "f### u###" statement. Ever think about that. You are aware aren't you that some of the corporations who received bail out funding said they didn't NEED it but were forced by the government to take it? and you are aware, are you not, that Goldman paid pack its TARP funding in 2009?

Yep, they did it all by themselves. Fannie and Freddie (government owned lenders by the way) had nothing whatsover to do with it when they cooked the books for so many years to hide their true accounting realities. The SEC - the government office that was supposed to be regulating the financial industry wasn't found watching porn on the internet all day. The Community Reinvestment Act that loosened lending requirements had absolutely nothing to do with it....Barney Frank didn't claim that there was absolutely no danger to the world economy when Bush administration folks testified before his committee that this was all coming unless the congress put on MORE regulations.....yep, Goldman Sachs and the Banks are responsible for every bit of it.

Dream on. And when you begin to come to your sense and realize that none of this could have happened if the POLITICIANS weren't in bed with the corporations then I'll join you in voting them all of office no matter which party they belong to.

I could get a job if I were not disabled. I want my money back and I want it REAL soon or else.
God will curse you for your ignorance. Jesus was not a capitalist. No apostle of Christ ever charged one penny for healing. No one ever paid for food when Jesus came to town. I am proud to be a communist. Proud to be following the gospel as best I can. Be happy that you can work and take care of yourself, for the day you fall into the same boat as me is coming soon, and you will find yourself on the street surrounded by american victims, wishing you had not been such a fool.

Then why aren't you protesting the Federal govt? You yourself said they are the ones who took your money not Wall St.. Who told you to go die? Somehow I don't think anyone told you that but if you have some facts to back you statements up I'd sure like to see them.

The federal government is controlled by wall street. That is why wall street is the target. The president, senate, and most of congress are all direct employees of wall street companies. Get it? I have the letter someplace from social security from Judge Ronald Sweeda of Wilkes-Barre PA where he basically just calls me liar. Even though he can see the hospital records of my surgeries and he has my sworn testimony, I have my doctor signing the disability forms, but still here I am with nothing. They are not just telling me to go die, it is attempted murder to collect taxes from someone who is barely making ends meet and then refuse benefits after they are disabled.

"No one got rich in America by themselves." - Elizabeth Warren;
They use our environment, our infrastructure, our labor, and our good will via the social contract. They have abused that contract (it is their destruction of that contract that led to this) providing socialism for themselves while sticking the rump of predatory capitalism in our faces. They maximize personal profit while socializing risk! And we're the communists? Do some studying friend. They are manipulating you against your own self interest. Peace!

You mean like how the railroads got built? Like how WE gave them LAND GRANTS and how they used that as collaterall to buy the SLAVE LABOR and steel etc...? Or how their main cash cow for the last forty years was selling that same real estate that WE GAVE TO THEM? Or the National Highway Defense Act of 1956? ... ???

What do you say to people like myself (a college graduate with a teaching certificate) who has to work two part time jobs to even survive? Are CEOs working harder than me?!? You need to acknowledge that there is a great inequality existing in our society and rather than bash attempts to improve it, come up with ideas for a solution and post that!

Oh, but that's your fault you are working two jobs just to barely get by.... that's what the losers on this forum will tell you, anyway. They just don't get it.... or they don't want to. They tell people to get jobs and stop whining and stop wanting to take from those "who've worked so hard to get rich", and yet they'll tell you in the next breath that no one owes you a job when you tell them that you have a college degree (and maybe even experience) but can't find a good, solid job in your career.

They're basically saying, "Fuck you if you don't have a job, and fuck you, because no one owes you a job."

Are you saying that people are owed a job? By who? Can we take all of your possessions and sell them so we can give someone a job? Or do you have some kind of alien device to create something from nothing? What is your plan?

Can we take all of...? No, but I personally believe that society can reclaim extreme excess from economic anomalies/outliers.

Alien device? Nope. We have plenty of things. The system that handles the things is flawed. We are changing it.

My plan? Well, personally, I think we need to switch to a static or reduction based economy (instead of growth-based) until we develop the ability to colonize other planets (a long way off). I think we need to get money out of politics. I think we need to replace sales taxes with transaction taxes. I think we should instate estate caps instead of estate taxes. Those things would be a good start.

Why do you feel that you don't need to work hard to survive? Did your grandparents feel this way, I wonder?

CEOs probably DO work harder than you - they are typically driven individuals. They get paid more because they are more PRODUCTIVE than you. That is, they create more value for their organization - to everyone's benefit.

FreeMarkets: How do you justify our system that allows Goldman Sachs CEOs to get millions in bonuses via tax payer bailouts when their investment decisions go bad and destroy our economy? You can not answer this question.

I do not believe we should have had tax payer bailouts. I also do not believe we should have allowed our government to manipulate and distort the market to create the causative conditions of this mess.

You, unlike most others here, have distinguished taxpayer money from private money, and hence we are in agreement. It is the notion of others that we should have any say in the private compensation of CEOs (or anyone else) that offends me.

Regarding CEO compensations, a lot of that bailout money went to the private compensation of CEOs-in the form of golden parachutes. In some cases, (such as AIG) it was used on lavish celebration parties. If that wasn't THE biggest FU to the taxpayers I don't what was. So many of these same people that had always been rabidly against handouts of any kind for others, were eagerly outstretching their hands when their own necks were on the chopping block-and then using it to line their own wallets even more!! And then many of them hide behind "our wonderful capitalist system" to justify their morally bankrupt and deplorable actions.

Agreed. I support this movement, but I've always believed that the protests should include the politicians. Sadly, there is no line that separates corrupt politicians from rich firms who can buy their own personal legislation that favors them, and allows them to get away with these outrageous deals in the first place. And with the blame, I include ourselves-the 100% who have been so lax for so long-getting distracted with all the pleasures of society, not voting, and looking the other way.

The inequality is in the decision making process. One does not just get born into a high paying Wall St. job. There's a lot of schooling to get and hard work to be done to get to the high paying positions. Why didn't you decide to work on Wall St.? You knew when you decided to become a teacher that you were going to make less than someone who went into business but you still chose to become a teacher. Don't get me wrong,God bless you for going into teaching,but as I said,you knew the decision you were making.But for that decision you might very well have been one of those evil Wall St. people.

If they were crooks surely they would be in jail? Why do you condemn a whole swath of people when you don't even know what they do. It sure is easy to just call them all crooks isn't it? It's so easy to pump the mob up by demonizing people you have never met or known isn't it? Yeah,hate is a really funny thing isn't it? The things you people say are the same as the KKK or the Nazis you've just picked a different group to hate.

I work on wall street and I'm not a crook. I financed my education through military service, I was the guy grinding it out in the library at a state university, and I joined wall street because I love math.

Is every doctor and lawyer only out to make a Dollar? Are all Union workers slouches who Are in it for the Overtime and pension? Don't paint all of wall street with the same brush, that's just as unfair as it would be the other way.

As I made the mistake of saying those on Wall St. are crooks, many of you who oppose the movement also paint the protesters with a very big brush.... calling them dirty, stinky, lazy, unmotivated, jobless, mooching, spoiled, rich hippies living off their mamas.

Please give the protesters and their supporters the same respect you are asking for, even if you don't agree with them.

OK, not all people who work on Wall St. are crooks (my apologies). I should have clarified that I meant some people on Wall St. are crooks, and that those crooks (along with others.... ones in government) caused the big mess.

Amen brother, i'm a gulf war veteran and paid for my education the same way. I also researched my future and invested in an education that would pay dividends in the future, mathematics. It would have been much more fun partying in college and taking early childhood education major, but I realized that wouldn't pay the bills. Thanks for your service.

Thank you for serving this country as well and grinding it out to pull your weight in this great country. Seems like OWS love knocking on other's success, make assumptions on what it's all about and how the financial industry is all about nepotism and playing golf at lunch.... I'm awake by 5, I'm home at 7:30 on a good day. I don't take lunch breaks and I don't look for one. I volunteer on my spare time, hold the door for those behind me and help anyone I can in need.

I'm not a crook just as a merchant who sells products at a 10-15% premium from their purchase price isn't, that's called making a living.

Perhaps you aren't a crook - people should be appraised as individuals. That being said, individuals with higher social/economic standing should be appraised more strictly.

But that's not what's at issue here. You say you're familiar with math, so perhaps this will explain what is: a few hundred people are financial-outliers in this country. With the way our current economic system works? They and their heirs will remain-so indefinitely, regardless of merit/productivity/etc.

Unless you are that 'ultra-rich', we probably aren't trying to single you out. Yes, the changes we discuss would affect you too, but I'm pretty sure most changes the people here put forward wouldn't cause you undue hardship. You'd probably still be well above the mean income, if you're hardworking, but the door to lifestyles like that of Warren Buffet would be closed to ALL.

"One does not just get born into a high paying Wall St. job." That's pure BS. Most Wall Steeters are not economists but people born into their daddy's social network. That's why they are hired by the Street, to sell to their daddy's data base.

a few points, freemarkets: i am 63, i am invested, i 'own' everything 'out right', no bills except existential, but wallstreet is a insiders game, three card monty with shills,aka politicians. second, there is no crime without victims, no greed without exploition; the difference is the rationalization, the color of the collar,blue or white, a quibble of words, the lawyers get theirs from. third, magdoff did not live in vacuum,but in a belief system, short term gain does not make a life time moral.

I think there is some truth to both of these points. Is everyone on Wall St. a crook who gets there via nepotism? Of course not. Is everyone without a job lazy? No. However, would it be fair to say that a bulk of those on Wall Street had a bigger head start than most (coming from well-to-do families, who could provide better experiences and afford quality education?) Probably. But no matter your roots, if you work with integrity, your conscience will be clear.

wel for an starter Im honest I think we stil live in the mid ages more technicaly but oure leaders ore rather the one that rule oure leaders
stil use the same tactics as before upper humans and low humans
just as Adolf Hitler did If the people who died in world war two could see what became of theire world they would think we just posponed it

mem26 stated they are working two part time jobs. I bet those aren't teaching jobs. The point is that when people have degrees, and even some experience, they STILL can't find a good job.... and all people like you can do is say, "Oh, it's YOUR fault".

Fuck you SwissMiss. What you fail to realize is no one owes anyone a job. When you get student loans to invest in your future (yes, an education is an investment), that investment better pay enough to reimburse your student loan lender. Sad thing, free college education leads to more college graduates and even more unemployment for college grads. Supply and demand, easy concept. I'm surte if mem26 wanted to move to North Dakota or South Dakota they could easily find a teaching job.

You people are so hypocritical and psychotic. In one breath, you tell people to get jobs. In the other, you tell people no one owes anyone a job. Which is it? Get your shit straight, please.

So people should be forced to move somewhere they may not want to move, just to have an opportunity to work in their career field? How about we take care of the people causing all this unemployment and hardship instead of targeting those who are trying to live a decent life? You people who continuously put down those of us who are doing so and standing up for the criminals are so fucking misguided that it isn't funny.

No, it is not their fault (other than not investigating the job market for their majors, perhaps. It is REALITY, and has been with us since the beginning of time. Only recently have we raised a generation of people who are so affluent, so free from disease and want, that they actually question reality. Such thinking would have been so dysfunction throughout the rest of human history that Darwinian processes would have rapidly de-selected it.

You clearly know no one personally who work on wall street. I trade with them and we make billion dollar trades over the phone, and nothing in writing. Happens every day. people without morals do not make it long. Greedy people, yes, but greed is not inherently bad. It is one of the Darwinian forces in developed economies.

Morals? And I suppose you are the authority on morals? That's too funny. Your heart is filled with hate for people you don't even know. I suggest you look inside yourself and see if you really think that the things you say and believe are moral.

CEOs are working harder than you. CEOs have worked A LOT harder than you to get where they are. There's a great inequality in our society because some people and their skills are scarce (CEOs, people working in finance, doctors, lawyers, etc.) and should be properly compensated for it.

They should be and have been compensated plenty. Do you mean to say CEO's should not be held accountable for screwups? If I screwed up so bad so as to need a "bailout" in my job, I think I'd be moving on to something else and work my way up from there with all that Hard Work and Rare Talent of mine.

Some aren't scarce enough. I can remember all of the praise that was being heaped on those creative geniuses who were making the world a better place for everyone by creating what they were creatively calling derivatives.

You can work very hard and very creatively doing very irresponsible or even criminal acts (or acts that should have been criminal but for the creative way that laws were changed to make them barely legal). Some people can admire the intensity of work and the creativity of people who do bad things but if they were working so hard and so creatively, then they were probably smart enough to know right from wrong and to act accordingly.

Not doing so, also rightfully, earns the contempt and disdain of the world whether you are as hard working or as creative as they are. The fact that they are continuing to exploit their clients, customers, taxpayers, depositors, and anyone else they can find, does them no credit.

The personal attack aside, you make a good point. Hard work should be "properly compensated," however, I think the general grievance here is with a set of regulations, or lack thereof, in which those to whom value is added (after all, in business, there's no point in compensation without value added) is determined by a focused few as opposed to benefitting those (also hard workers) who were unknowingly investing, with real money, in something that was not going to add value to their lives.

The fact is, there are good CEOs out there, but there seem to be more bad ones. When I look at people as a whole I can see that most people are good so, given the level of greed and corruption in the financial sector, it would appear that there's probably something wrong with the system. One being that there are no repercussions for greed and corruption, and that is not how a free market is supposed to work.

First of all, you have no measure for how "hard" a CEO works other than hours and salary, and you deliberately shift between these when grounding your claim about how much they deserve. Certainly most CEOs work long hours, but so do migrant farmers and high school teachers, and there is no way to gauge the mental and physical experience of each of these when working, so there's no objective measure for how "difficult" their jobs are. Secondly, "demand" may, in economics textbooks, be a function of the rarity of a given skill, but in the real world it has as much to do with social leverage as anything else. A college professor has as much education, if not more so, than a CEO, and has certainly worked hard to do this (if they teach a science, they have learned advanced mathematics and at least one foreign language, in addition to whatever special abilities their particular field requires; if they are in the humanities or social sciences, they have learned at least two languages in addition to the conventional expectations of their subject). Moreover, their skills are comparably rare (if not rarer, given their field). They are paid substantially less (their median salary is $73000, compared to a median CEO salary of $9 million) because they have no control over the amount of their pay; only at the top levels do they even get invited to audit budgetary meetings, and this is extremely rare (since it makes no sense, except for the purposes of their research, which would be field-specific), and they never have a say in their own salary. CEOs, on the other hand, are the managers of their companies and therefore are in direct control of their paychecks. The only thing that curbs this is the shareholders' decisions, and, since the late 1980s, it has been common practice to give CEOs large shares in the companies they manage.

And all of this supposes that they are being "properly" compensated. There has been a drop off in the ratio of CEO to average employee pay since the market crash, but it is still at about 260 times the amount. There has been an enormous increase in CEO salaries since the 1980s (between 1980 and 2003 it rose by a factor of six, while inflation decreased the value of a dollar by just over 2x during that period; during 2010 alone there was an increase in median CEO pay of 27%, up to the $9 mil number I quoted), but there has been no comparable increase in the tasks allotted to them. So how exactly is their pay tagged to the work they do?

The people in NC are Idiot red necks just look around! They have been spoon feed by their lazy ass parents their entire lives and these are the ones in control of the NC government. Large Corporations* don't make things by the way they pay extremely poor people nothing to do it for them and this is causing an unbalance of idiot red necks trying to rule the world. This is coming from a NC college grad.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”), as conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, today filed lawsuits against 17 financial institutions, certain of their officers, and various unaffiliated lead underwriters. The suits allege violations of federal securities laws and common law in the sale of residential private-label mortgage-backed securities (“PLS”) to Fannie and Freddie. Complaints have been filed against the following lead defendants, in alphabetical order:

Yes, I'm aware that Paulson was a former GS partner. Of all people he should have seen the crisis coming and protected the American public, after all GS certainly foresaw the crisis and protected itself.

However, the bailout was a necessary thing, in fact many academic macroeconomists agree with that. What we need is a way to make the 1% pay back the 99% who shouldered and paid for that risk and who continue to suffer the results of the crisis.

What Paulson and the banks did in 2008 was a Silent Financial
Coup d' Etat on the American people. Everything that was done and Not done after that fell in line, with this Silent Coup, esp. the pivotal Supreme Court Decision ruling that Corps. were citizens, which requires a Constitutional Amendment to change!!

One person of the commission that investigated the causes filed a similar opinion, ignoring all of the other evidence. It has not been generally accepted as credible in light of all of the evidence. He was a Republican too.

The heads of the fannie and freddie organizations should ALSO be prosecuted ALONG WITH the much larger bunch of crooks also identified in the investigation. And ALLshould face civil disgorgement suits.

We should be as creative as the creative financial geniuses that created and implemented this mess. All of you apologists for them seem to be smart enough not to get caught. How about a suggestion for creative punishments for those who are convicted?

ROFLMFAO yup you are a good little anarchist. As I've said before,OWS is a violent movement and is becoming more so all the time. I hope you are really prepared for what you are leading to because the bulk of America does not have your back.

I am not anarchist. I am Christian. God has my back. Those of us with nothing to lose need to band together just like 1775. Someday you will lose it all and you will be on the street with us. It is only a matter of time under this system. Your health will fail. You will lose it.

No we are trying to save people. What are you looking at? We are at war with the companies. This includes you. You think you are immune or something? You are a slave too dum to jump on the underground railroad. There is a better life man.

I could NOT Be more excited that the #ows is taking this to the FACE of Corruption!... I , along with over 100 others over the last 4 years have been Fighting Goldman Sachs' Collusion and Graft... we have had petition after petition to stop them.. sent e mail, letters made phone calls over the years by the thousands, and only got Goldman Sachs FINED!

But now.. Thank the Universe the #ows Exists.. and is getting MORE Powerful Every Day...
that we Will Make those Responsible face the Criminal Courts,... After Goldman, we have a few more for you to take a Good Look At.. All with Facts, and paper Trails if you need....
Thank You, Thank You..Thank you...
...
Marlow/ Editor.. Investors4Justice.net

I'm going to ask you to take a look at a website www.market-ticker.org
He started the Tea Party and has since rebuked them for changing their founding ideals and now supports OWS because he knows the majority of people pissed off at the government and elites are just normal working Americans.

So some smoke pot, really who cares if that is the best argument you have against the OWS movement you have no argument at all, myself being a Libertarian could not care less if they smoke pot I would rather have my freedom back.

My only point is that this is a show, not a trial. It does not follow due process without representation of the accused. Let's not get all self righteous about how fair and judicial this is. It is a dramatic way to air a list of grievances and that is fine.

Ok, how bout this: Since they're being tried by this grand Court of Public Opinion, these protests have been the discovery phase. The 1% lashed out by leveraging the police to attack us over and over again during the pretrial. By doing so, the 1% have shown that they are not competent to stand trial.

Besides, their counsel didn't show up.

"Rule 43 provides that a defendant shall be present

(...)

However, the following exceptions are included in the Rule:

(...)

if he persists in disruptive conduct after being warned that such conduct will cause him to be removed from the courtroom

a corporation need not be present, but may be represented by counsel

(...)"

And...

"A trial court may infer that a defendant's absence from trial is voluntary and constitutes a waiver if a defendant had personal knowledge of the time of the proceeding"

"In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial. In common law legal systems, conviction of a person in absentia, that is in a trial in which he/she is not present to answer the charges, is held to be a violation of natural justice. Specifically, it violates the second principle of natural justice, audi alteram partem.

Thanks for the Latin lesson. However I've already had four years in high school. To wit: uncharged and indeterminate rendition and torture? No? Does that qualify? How about secret executive findings to kill some one? How's about that? It doesn't happen???

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Thank you for taking this action. I have emailed our congressional "representatives" many times since the 2008 "financial crisis." We want the $268,000 stolen from our 401ks that we contributed to for over 30 years. That would have sustained us for 10 years of our retirement lives. My husband just turned 70 and is in bad health. We will never have the opportunity to "re-earn" that income. The 401k system turned out to be another great scam that Congress wants to replicate for the Social Security Fund. We are not greedy or vindictive. We just want the stolen money paid back--to all 401k accounts and to replace the IOUs stuffed into the Social Security fund with the cash owed. And yes, other financial institutions and our government should also be held accountable. But as others pointed out, we have to start somewhere.
Again, thank you.

"You've always seen on Capitol Hill, staffers who go in and out, working for senators and then working for lobbyists and then working for companies. You're seeing it a lot at the DOJ. There was a time from 2002 until 2008 that financial-law businesses were booming and there were a lot of law firms hiring any prosecutor who had financial expertise, and a lot of those prosecutors have gone back to government or cycled back out, so the ties between the [legal] defence community and the DOJ have gotten particularly strong when it comes to financial sorts of cases."

You guys are the best - go get them - it is about time everyone and I mean everyone in America understands why this whole financial melt down happened. Many Americans actually think Barney Frank and Fannie Mae are the key players to the melt down.

actually, the Community Reinvestment Act was the start of the mess. Forcing banks to loan money to people who had no understanding of mortgages was the second. Wall Street figured out a way to find the loans pallatable to secondary investors by wrapping them with Principal Mortage Insurance, and banks, insurance companies and pensions waved them in. As funding became less stringent, speculators drove home prices up and then the refinancers and home equity borrowers marched in for their free money. Eventually, the house of cards was blown over and everyone suffered massive losses. Truth is, most people on this site have no idea how wall street compensation is stratified. the overwhelming portion of their income is called 'bonus', because they have to 'eat what they kill'. Tons of people were laid off in 2008 and 2009 because of bad trades and will never work on the street again. The amount of education and sacrifice of time from high school (to get into Ivy League) to MBA is staggering. I know, I compete with these guys every day and I started in the military, gulf war.

I work for Goldman at 200west St. Last night former president George W. Bush was in the building giving a speech and speaking to his bosses on the 43rd floor. Use this information to your advantage. Tell everyone.

Goldman Sachs' crimes against the US economy pale by comparison with what they've 'achieved' in Europe - facilitating Greece's fraudulent qualification for euro entry, a fraud that has Europe teetering towards economic disaster (oh, but that big fat profit). Goldman has for years controlled the US treasury (Paulson, Rubin....) - Republican and Democrat - and bribed and lobbied relentlessly for deregulation and decriminalization of their crooked business activities. Maximizing profit, maximizing control. Zero consideration any consequence other than their own bonuses. Goldman Gangsters are public enemy number one.

keep up the good work! If we scream loud and long enough our government will be forced to do something about this twisted system or risk ending up like egypt and libya! If history's told me anything it's that a government can only ignore its people for so long before they stand up and fight!

um i dont think yelling will do shit so maybe us the time to go buy a news paper and find a job so what if its something you think you are to good for just get off you butt and make some money yourself and maybe you will be happy again and not blame your problems on someone eles and yall choose to put your money in thoses banks so thats your problem

I'm sorry that I don't have time right now to read everyone's great comments to this brilliant article and strategy, which are absolutely fantastic.

This action is such a great idea (and the economic facts so well explained). THANK YOU especially for explaining how Goldman Sachs used the credit default swaps--I had never understood that.

Could I suggest another, related idea: can we sue Goldman under RICO, the racketing laws? Or was that already done? Some of the individuals have already been sued. A lawsuit is an action a defendant can't brush off, they're forced to go through the motions (intended pun), and a lot of what's called discovery in litigation (forcing the other side to produce often confidential documents) is invaluable in exposing crimes. (In fact, the recent lawsuit against a GS trader, "Fabulous Fab," made headlines and huge press coverage, including of hearings, all over the country, for Fabulous Fab's internal email in which he described the toxic investments as a "shitty deal."

Thank you again profoundly. Although I support all of OWS's demands, this action, and even though I think Goldman's ultimately a symptom--albeit a very powerful symptom--not the root cause--this action takes the movement to another level, thanks to sheer brilliance.

It sickens me when I think of all the people who planned on retiring within the last few years only to lose massive chunks of their 401ks. Then, from this collapse, when they may have hoped to somehow recoup their losses, became unemployed due to factory closure, age discrimination in an employer's market or downsizing due to loss of business in a completely ravaged, deflated market.
These same people, in their twilight, might also have their social security cut and their healthcare delivery cut, while the same people that pissed away these retirements were just given billions of dollars. Wow. I especially appreciated being told that it was all for our own good.
There is absolutely nothing about the intellectual prowess of a man who rips off old people that impresses me.
I cannot for the life of me seem to find one shred of empathy for anyone of these GS vultures, so, with that, I say, I support this event.

I vote for giving Lloyd Blankfein and others from Goldman Sachs the same judicial treatment as they are giving Julian Assange of Wikileaks.
it's pretty clear to see that he has been totally stitched up and is looking at spending probably the rest of his life in a US jail just like Private Bradley Manning. This is not justice this is revenge so let's do the same with the f *cking BANKSTERS !

this is not being done for drama sake, it makes sense to hold this whole event so that those who simply do not understand the full reasons can perhaps learn as it takes place. There are a lot of people who truly do not understand why all the things that are taking place are. As this is being put out on feed the whole process as to the verdicts and such will be seen by the world and there will be no room for doubt as to why it is taking place. People need to fully understand something to support it and this just may open quite a few eyes.

the issue is not more regulation
the issue is that the regulators refuse to act at all
it's like we have sheriffs in town that don't have the will to make the arrests
so citizens arrests must happen
this needs to be done on huge stage if you will
why hasn't attorney general holder not indited one bankster
the crimes were committed but the sheriffs in town break bread with the black barts

The list of transgressions above fails to include the biggest heist that Wall Street investment banks perpetrate on honest investors. It is illegal market manipulation through high-frequency algorithmic trading. The big banks make most of their money from their proprietary trading desks and it amounts to 70% or more of their profits. All of their other financial crimes pale in comparison. It is statistically impossible to make tens of millions in profits every single trading day unless you are cheating and yet the big banks accomplish this impossible feat quarter after quarter with nary a word from the regulators at the SEC, who are obviously in bed with them. Ban outright or place a transaction tax on each high-frequency computerized trade and watch the illicit profits evaporate. This alone will bring the big banks to their knees and hopefully out of business, as they should have been in 2008.

I hear a lot about blame from both this website and my local occupy. Blame corporations, blame the government, blame the Federal Reserve, blame executives, etc. Not once have I heard blame cast on the people for their own decisions. Nobody forced people to enter into mortgages that they couldn't pay for. Nobody forced people to buy a house that was ridiculously overpriced.
Yes, the government under Clinton put into place the legislation that pressured financial institutions to write sub-prime mortgages. These financial institutions protected themselves from these bad loans. Once the people who chose an unhealthy financial situation defaulted on their promises, the ripple flowed through the financial web. Jobs were lost and many additional people were hurt. Then the government, true to their historical performance, continued to be ineffective in helping and actually setup our economy for horrendous inflation.
So, yes, corporations acted in their own self interest, and politicians enacted popular policy without regard to the consequences, but excluding any personal responsibility for our part in this mess makes all of you no better than those you are attacking.
If you could have seen what the financial institutions saw, wouldn't all of you protected yourself?
Goldman and the rest sold their products to other competent financial professionals who are the ones with a fiduciary responsibility to their investors. I don't see an attack on the pensions and mutual funds. The investors put their trust in the managers of their pension and mutual funds. These are the people whose actions hurt the people they were required to protect. Stop and hold responsible those who had a responsibility to the people: themselves and those who had the fiduciary requirement to act in a prudent way.

This sounds like a kangaroo court. Way to go! You've found someone to blame. This has nothing to do with justice. You have effectively moved the discussion about systematic problems and turned it into a lynching (humanitarian and non violent, of course, of course).

This is a discredit to what this protest could stand for, which is the issue of income inequality. This just shows that this "movement" is made out of hate for the rich rather than love for the poor. Good luck accomplishing anything.

I would have loved to gone to this!!! Why didn't I? Because it wasn't posted on the site until 12:08am the night before it happened!!! By the time I saw it the next morning it was too late to get there.

How is it possible that financial swindlers and liars continue to run our economy and our government? Through leveraged fear wrapped in "risk of a 2nd Great Depression." Truth is the risk is real. Left unspoken, however, is reality that, calamity making for a 2nd Great Depression is virtually inescapable.

yay!!!! but, wait, where did Geitner show up from???? oooops, and the rest of the Csars assisting your Leader???? Might there be some hypocrisy amongst you??? too bad you didn't follow the original "astroturf", "racist", "mobs" (per Madame Pelosi/Sir Reid/Presidente/Good Old Joe about the Tea Party proud Americans before they had ONE meeting...) and go home as Pelosi's tears ran down her cheeks remembering back to the 1960/70 in SF......YOU are recreating the insanity and chaos of then; even those folks grew up, got jobs and got a life.........We will pray for you........

The 2012 politacal race is getting started, so lets put the breaks on it. Everyone, whether you're a Dem, Repub, or an Inddependant. Let's boycott the Nationla Conventions of both parties. When a politician comes into your town, or state spouting the continual lies, and asking for donations say no. In November everyone should go the polls,and vote against everyone on the ballot, or boycott the polls all together. Tea partiers, as well as OWS, as well as everyone else. Haven't you heard "The enemy, of my enemy, is my friend grasshopper." Let's face it we are all against too much government.

PLEASE MAKE SURE: That you do not convict some scapegoat for this, focus on the big boys and big banks that stole your money and jobs (Greenspan for example). You're own government right now is trying to pass the blame on to non-important foreigners or people that you guys have never even heard about to shut you up. this is the oldest trick in the book, smoke screens and mirrors.

Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Plaza on Nov. 3, 2011.
Unedited, live film of march from Liberty Square to Goldman Sachs headquarters at 200 West Street in Manhattan @
http://youtu.be/TZb-HLMa4Ck

Professor Cornel West joins the protesters from Liberty Square.
The protesters were chanting "banks got bailed out and we got sold out."
The crowd then read the Indictment against Goldman Sachs for looting billions of dollars from the American people.
A crowd of about 16 people, including the Reverend Billy Talen and author Chris Hedges, then sat down in front of the entrance to the Goldman Sachs headquarters under threat of arrest.

You people are so ignorant and gullible it is frightening to me. Who is misleading you? Are you really so naive as to believe everything you read about supposed "bribery" and "corruption" on "Wall Street"? Your cause is just and I support it, but my goodness you are going after the wrong people and I can't believe you are so misguided!

To call this bank with whom probably NONE of you have ever done business a "criminal" organization and hold an in absentia trial -- what are you, some kind of two-bit junta? Who presented the defense? Oh wait, they were guilty so no reason to have a defense, right? YOU ARE ONLY ONE SMALL STEP AWAY FROM A LYNCH MOB. More importantly, who is misleading you into thinking the banks are the enemies of the people, rather than the instruments of the people's collective will as expressed through our economy? You have way more power than you know -- you just have to vote, you fools.

The FHA and HUD are only set up to help and protect the mortgage lenders. They allow the banks and other mortgage companies to make sub-prime loans to buyers who can't afford them. Then, after the bankers squeeze all they can out of the buyers, they evict them and the Government pays off the loan. Which means the taxpayers foot the bill. What the hell is the Government doing in the mortgage loan business in the first place? Fannie and Freddie need to go!

Mark, go look at the community reinvestment act. Banks are FORCED by government edict to make a fixed portion of their loans to unqualified applicants. When the government forces private businesses to become instruments of social welfare it is no different than communism. USSR proved it doesn't work.

MooseHead, I hope your still around. That's a good point! We might disagree on who's to blame, but I think we both agree that these programs need to go. My perspective is that the banks lobbied for this so they could make more loans at higher interest rates and repackage them into CDOs and such. If the truth is somewhere in the middle -it was probably a collaboration of the left and the financial community trying yo figure out how they could make it look like they were doing something of social merit while they were actually making money. Both the "FORCED" lending and the Government (i.e. taxpayer) guarantees are bad ideas.

``Though counsel for Goldman Sachs did not show, Hedges pointed out that a special committee of the U.S. Senate already produced more than 600 pages of evidence in a report documenting the bank's alleged crimes, and he argued that corrupt politicians have prevented actual criminal proceedings from happening.
"It has former officials filtered throughout the government that lavishly funds compliant politicians, including Barack Obama, who received $1 million from employees at Goldman Sachs in 2008, when he ran for president," Hedges said. "The politicians, in return, permit Goldman Sachs to ignore securities laws that under a functioning judiciary system would see the firm indicted for felony fraud."''

Has anyone actually looked at this so called "evidence"? It is complete nonsense. You people should ask yourselves who is benefiting from you being motivated like sheep to attack Goldman Sachs, which neither hurt you nor can help you, rather than actually doing something useful.

The rich and famous do not want to be seen as 'pigs' or go down in history as 'villains'. They want to be seen as 'heros' and go down in history as 'humanitarians'. The market for their product has become global. The fan base has become global. Therefore, the 'humanitarian' effort and 'good will' PR machine has gone global. These 'humanitarian' efforts and 'good deeds' are not chosen to address the greatest need or injustice. They are chosen almost exclusively to appeal to the largest demographic for their respective commercial products. The largest fan base. Efficiency or effect is of little or no concern. Its all about PR, marketing, image, and fame.

This is why the rich and famous have all taken up 'philanthropy' or 'good will' around the world. This is why so many have 'schools' or 'foundations' in their name. This is why so many play golf or appear on a TV game show for 'charity'. This is why so many sign motorcycles, other merchandise, or auction off their own 'personal effects' for 'charity'. This is why so many have TV shows with a 'charitable' gimmick. This is why so many arrange photo ops with wounded veterans, firefighters, or sick children. This is why so many have adopted children from around the world (Which they always pay others to care for full time. The hired professionals are sworn by legal contract to confidentiality. Not allowed to discuss or appear in public with the children they care for. Those 'photo' and 'interview' opportunities are reserved exclusively for the rich and famous 'adoptive' parents.). This is why every 'humanitarian' effort and 'good deed' is plastered all over the media worldwide. Its not about 'humanity' or 'good will'. Its all about marketing, image, fame, and PROFIT. This is why we are so often reminded of their respective 'good deeds' or 'humanitarian' efforts shortly before or after the release of their latest commercial product.

Charitywatch.org and Charitynavigator.org are both non-profit charity watchdogs. Of all the well rated charities (about 1500) only three are closely affiliated with celebrities. Michael J Fox (not the primary donor), Tiger Woods (not the primary donor), and Bill Clinton (not the primary donor). That's three well rated celebrity foundations out of 1500. In general, celebrity foundations run like crap because they blow half the money on private jet rides, five star accommodations, and PR crews.

The fans have been terribly misled. For example:

Virtually every penny 'donated' by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to date has come from repeated sales of baby photos. With each sale, the baby money goes to the 'Jolie-Pitt' foundation. A foundation which has never done anything but shelter funds. The 'donation' is immediately publicized worldwide.

When Jolie or Pitt have a new movie to promote, a portion is then donated from their own 'foundation' to a legitimate charity. This leaves their ignorant fans under the impression that 'another' donation has been made. When in fact, its the same baby money being transferred again and again. Another portion is blown on private jet rides, super-exclusive accommodations, photo ops, and PR crap. This saves Jolie and Pitt millions in travel/stay expenses and their respective studios tens of millions in advertising. It's all very calculated.

Of course, Jolie and Pitt could simply endorse any of the 1500 most efficient and effective charities. Of course, the baby money would go much further and do far more good if it were donated to such charities to begin with.

But that would be too boring.

The 'Make it Right' Foundation took in over $12,000,000 the first year alone. Tens of millions overall. Brad Pitt has never been the primary donor, planner, or designer. He is a figurehead and salesman with a position on the board of advisors. Nothing more. Still, he has been showered with glorious praise by fellow celebrities and media outlets around the world. Again, the fans have been terribly misled.

In order to move into a 'green' home, the innocent victims of Katrina are required to provide a property deed, meet a number of financial requirements, and pay an average of $150,000 UP FRONT. The difference is offered in cheap loans or on occasion (according to the website) forgiven. To date, only a few dozen former home owners have qualified.

The 'Make it Right' foundation was never intended to help the lower income residents of New Orleans reclaim anything lost in Katrina. In fact, 'Make it Right' is part of a calculated effort to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward without them. Part of a calculated effort to raise property values in the area by displacing the poor. They are by design, excluded. Unable to qualify.
Of course, Brad Pitt could have simply endorsed 'Habitat For Humanity'. A well known, proven, and efficient home building operation. Of course, the tens of millions in funding would have gone MUCH further.

But that would be too boring.
Big name celebrities have no desire to make the world a better place.

My note to all those who worked hard to make it to wall st and make money, the winners and architects of our economy whom we rely on and must trust:

If you become an executive, remember you will be responsible for your organization. You will be expected to know your business and industry from the ground up.

So much complexity, but... even if your ignorance was in some way understandable, no matter how good you are, don't say you aren't responsible. You are, regardless of your awesomeness. You just are. It's your job.

Don't lean on the government and then turn around trying to look like a king and keep on leading. Your board members and stock holders are not the end of it. You've just entered the public domain, and we're not worried about your stock price or your opinions on how important you are.

It's time to let in some fresh faces who know even better what they are risking by taking responsibility for such a large important part of the US economy, the world economy.

If you bit off more than you can chew, and then asked for or even were forced to take our mercy, don't expect the game to be the same again. You lost. Get up from the table, pay the bill, it's time for you to go home and wash yourself before trying to come back to the table.

We don't want the same old people around on whom we had to take mercy, whom we celebrated as lords of a phony realm. We need some real change from some real leaders, who are from the new and real world where we need real checks and balances. Leaders who, to at least a greater degree, still have their pants on.

bblope, gs and jpmorgan didn't want the TARP nor did they need it. The only reason they took it was because they were effectively coerced by the Bush administration. Had they not, the banks that took the TARP captial and actually needed it, would have been 'run on' and the entire banking system would have collapsed. They both paid it back the first day they were legally allowed to return it. Look it up.

They still had to take it. So that they wouldn't be brought down when weaker banks failed, along with the rest of us. They would have went down with the rest. It is an industry wide problem. We need industry leadership. They are part of the industry, maybe the smartest banks in it. Why aren't they publicly lobbying to improve it so we don't have to hold their hands along with the rest of the industry? Let's see how self regulation can work, I'm still waiting.

If the industry as a whole needs government underwriting to survive, they need to pay for it in the good times, like any insurance. Or, we need these brilliant leaders to figure out how to structure things differently for the industry so they can cover their own assets and take their own risks without involving me. Then I can quit worrying about telling my politicians that nothing has changed yet and that they may need to worry their less financially savvy minds with more blunt measures such as grass roots bills and the like.

I'm not going to accept status quo here, I don't care if it costs me to get a system where we either eliminate, or failing that, at least appropriately value the governments role in the industry.

Quotations from former U.S. presidents who knew the domination of the gangster banksters would one day play out. Hurray for the People's Movement!
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance.” President James Madison
The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. -Abraham Lincoln
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. – Thomas Jefferson (from debate over the Re-charter of the 1809 Bank Bill)
Despite these warnings, Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. A few years later he wrote: I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. –Woodrow Wilson

Quotations from former U.S. presidents who knew the domination of the gangster banksters would one day play out. Hurray for the People's Movement!
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance.” President James Madison
The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. -Abraham Lincoln
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered….
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. – Thomas Jefferson (from debate over the Re-charter of the 1809 Bank Bill)
Despite these warnings, Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. A few years later he wrote: I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. –Woodrow Wilson

(DemocracyNow!) Amy Goodman interviews William Black, a white-collar criminologist, former financial regulator, and author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One." Black teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and recently took part in Occupy Kansas City.

Occupy Wall Street! #OWS #Occupy. #99%. We have the money that they rely on for their escapades and games that they play. We can take that power away by taking our money back and putting it somewhere real and local. Bank Transfer Day on Saturday is a good first step. But credit unions are more than just a place to keep your money. They’re your neighbors, too. Want to see how the bank treats your neighbors? learnmore.asmarterchoice.org.

Could I humbly suggest you contact professor William Black of the University of Missouri, Kansas City? Black is an expert on financial fraud, has a record of very successful prosecution following the Savings and Loan crisis, and has been a zealous champion of the need to get tougher on the banksters and send them to jail. Please! I promise you that you won't be disappointed by what Black brings to the table: legal smarts, moral zeal and a deep understanding of the way the financial system works.

Remember, the other Bad Guy in the Goldman Sachs swindle is JOHN (not Hank) Paulson.
Paulson became a billionaire by short-selling subprime mortgages in 2007, and made $3.5 billion that year. In 2010, he beat a hedge-fund record by making nearly $5 billion. In 2011, he made bad trades in Bank of America, Citigroup and the fraudulently-suspected China-based Canadian-listed company; Sino-Forest Corporation. His flagship fund, Paulson Advantage Fund, was down over 40% as of September 2011. During that same time, Paulson had invested most of his personal fortune in gold and it had grown by $3.1 billion from September 2010 to September 2011. He was ranked 39 on the 2011 Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people with a net worth of almost $16 billion.

Why is making money evil? The guy realized the mortgage bubble and traded on it. He also saw how Bernanke was devauling the USD and believed gold would hold its value. He traded into that as well. Why hate the winner? What crime did he commit and/or who did he hurt with his gold trade or his subprime mortgage short? Since he made 3.5 billion, he paid at least 475million in taxes. That fed a whole bunch of families.

What about the homeless people that your groups (and the like) have pushed away because of impersonations at your events. Because they are "stealing" food. Isn't that what you're fighting for.

AND what about the millions of dollars that are in your groups (and the like) bank accounts that were given as donations among other things to you. Why not "share the love," after all it's what your preaching about.

Aside from these facts, I believe this whole "MARCH" is a shroud to cover the real issues that are plaguing this country.

This is very encouraging news. I have never thought that the real issues involve money per say but the results on the actions of money abuse. It's not about bring down capitalism it's about the reality in human terms that power based on money is not the framework our country was based on. Rules and laws need to be shared by all evenly. It's obvious in hindsight that wall street caused the mess and needs to be held accountable but the real crime on our country is that our government allowed it and must answer for this.

"The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me, and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe."

Liberals, the reason that you cannot understand the professionalism of the police men and women is because you probably got a worthless degree like fine arts or something so you can't get a job. Now you want the government to step in and give you money for the rest of your life because of choices YOU made. Allow me to offer my perspective and MAYBE it will make sense to you. As a police officer, you have laws that you must uphold. When someone breaks these laws, whether that be trespassing or public urination or what have you, they HAVE to uphold the law... That's it.... You are violating laws left and right at ows. I agree with the over all message of ows but I don't think that 3/4 of the people there do. If you want something in life you need to work for it. It's time that the people of this country stop paying for the laziness of the "feeling of entitlement" revolution.

I know this post will most likely be deleted. It doesnt support your cause. Instead of taking the time to understand, it is much easier to just delete what you dont like. Thats what you are doing right now. your "Movement" hates what it wants and dont understand. You want it without earning it. It appears the Movement is full of people who are dilusional. You think you represent 99%. Speak more clearly about your cause. You represent yourselves. You call this corporate greed because you choose not to earn your wealth. I choose to EARN my wealth. I was once like you. Unknowledgable. Uneducated. Undriven because I played myself a victim. You are not victims. You have a choice. You choose to hate what you do not understand. Understandably so. We as a nation are brought up to hate what we dont understand. Of course, we want everything to be easy. You want what the "1%" have, everything handed to you on a platter. You want what you are protesting against. Thats the sheer definition of hypocricy. They earned it. I am not a member of the upper or middle class. I am a free citizen of these United States. I earn my way. The Majority of these corporations EARNED their way. Why cant you do the same. Bill Gates wasnt always wealthy. He EARNED his company. Steve Jobs was broke as well. He EARNED his way. Why cant you "Occupiers" just grow up. Go home. EARN your way. Like I said in the beginning. You will delete this post because it doesnt support your "cause". That is also Un-American. You want freedom to express. WATCH YOU SUPRESS MINE.

I know this post will most likely be deleted. It doesnt support your cause. Instead of taking the time to understand, it is much easier to just delete what you dont like. Thats what you are doing right now. your "Movement" hates what it wants and dont understand. You want it without earning it. It appears the Movement is full of people who are dilusional. You think you represent 99%. Speak more clearly about your cause. You represent yourselves. You call this corporate greed because you choose not to earn your wealth. I choose to EARN my wealth. I was once like you. Unknowledgable. Uneducated. Undriven because I played myself a victim. You are not victims. You have a choice. You choose to hate what you do not understand. Understandably so. We as a nation are brought up to hate what we dont understand. Of course, we want everything to be easy. You want what the "1%" have, everything handed to you on a platter. You want what you are protesting against. Thats the sheer definition of hypocricy. They earned it. I am not a member of the upper or middle class. I am a free citizen of these United States. I earn my way. The Majority of these corporations EARNED their way. Why cant you do the same. Bill Gates wasnt always wealthy. He EARNED his company. Steve Jobs was broke as well. He EARNED his way. Why cant you "Occupiers" just grow up. Go home. EARN your way. Like I said in the beginning. You will delete this post because it doesnt support your "cause". That is also Un-American. You want freedom to express. WATCH YOU SUPRESS MINE.

This is very encouraging news. I have never thought that the real issues involve money per say but the results on the actions of money abuse. It's not about bring down capitalism it's about the reality in human terms that power based on money is not the framework our country was based on. Rules and laws need to be shared by all evenly. It's obvious in hindsight that wall street caused the mess and needs to be held accountable but the real crime on our country is that our government allowed it and must answer for this.

throw the motherfuckers in jail!!!I have been waiting forever for this to happen. After the rolling stone article on Godman sachs, I couldn't believe they weren't "perp walked" out of there and into jail cells, their assets frozen. It seems we have to take the situation into more sober hands, the hands of the people. Government has failed us, maybe if we lead, Obama will follow. I know he wants to. If only he could be elected without MONEY andcould pass anything he wants. he had to bail out the rich wall street idiots because the damage was already done, but they should rot in jail for fraud, and have their licences revoked as well. Elliot Spitzer started to do this, but then got caught at a whore house. We have to pick up where he left off, jailing, fining them, taking their licence to practice in securities permanently, and regulate regulate regulate!

but...what if all of Obama's bills went thru, suddenly, one day. He can't win the election without wall st donors. That's a fact. My five bucks ain't gonna do it. So, what if his jobs bill, his Iraq withdrawal, his health care bill (not watered down by the gop vipers), his consumer protection department with E. warren REALLY at the head, his supreme court appointees who DO NOT say corps are people, too,...his alternative energy plans and investments thereof, his INFRASTRUCTURE plans like high speed rail (the gop are just PROUD that they shut it down, their big "accomplishment" for the eek), his TAXING the millionaires (some who he already got to agree that it was OK publicly i.e. warren buffet), his intended overhaul of the dept of immigration, , well, you get it, you know, the long list of Obama stuff we elected him to do, and then left him in the lurch at midterms,(very very sad. Poor guy.) well, brothers and sisters, would it really BE SO BAD to let him give it a try? Until Wall street really doesn't own the government, the Pacs and super pacs, and the courts and pig police, well, what is he supposed to do, give up? I'm voting for Obama 2012. I do wish he would join the 99% today, though and close gitmo. I wrote to him today to tell him that...again. But don't get me wrong, he is the only thing, besides a few choice congresspeople, keeping the country from falling apart ALL the way today.

I understand your point and that's the question everyone will have to grapple with themselves.

Ultimately it's exactly what I think Obama had to choose as well. He was probably guaranteed two terms and a certain legislative agenda in return for leaving the finanical systems alone and/or indeed saving it.

Personally there comes a point when principle trumps being a realist.

Democracy is more important than small legislative successes and just like Europe which has a more acute and obvious case of an erosion of democracy Americans really have to ask themselves do they want to be given limited democracy that the finacial elite grant?

I'm European and currently two governments here are totally run by Technocrats, one because the PM dared give the people a referendum. Others have to have their budgets approved by foreign powers who are acting in their bank bond holders interests not the people.

There are ways out of this however they all involve the rich loosing lots of money (check out Steve Keen) but at the moment our goverments are acting in the interests of the 1%, and that includes Obama. The ones that won't act in the interests of the 1% are being replaced.

Yeah, Obama is like our representative, like "daddy". The representative FROM the 1%, but trying to assist the 99%. If he had his way I think he would revolutionize the world so the 99% wouldn't have to suffer. But he is a compromiser and he is also up against the GOP filibuster machine (see GOP 40th bill to repeal Obamacare) Obamacare was a big step (where Hillary FAILED) to humanize the health insurance industry. It obviously wasn't a major solution to end suffering and people profiting from suffering, but it was 10000% better than the status quo (basically an industry of bloodleech criminals) and helps real people here. I observe that OWS works OUTSIDE the system of government and doesn't have a political party because they reject the system because it is overrun by $$$ pigs to the point where it is no longer (probably never was) a real representative democracy. I understand that and agree with it. It would be nice if they could make our fake representative system go out of style. In the meantime, groups are trying to change major decisions like Citizens United and such by using PACS and other "in the system" methods. progress is slow. I'm 50 and doubt that I will see any major changes in my lifetime to changes in politics. On the other hand, there was legislation in Montana limiting campaign contributions and there are socialist style health care systems in Asian and European countries that exist even though those countries are basically capitalist. The UK. They recently had the most horrendous embarrassing bank scandal in the history of the world, yet one can still go down to the hospital or doc for free there,and their military participates in stupid ward like Iraq and Afghanistan instead of just commando strike forces for specific terrorist targets as it should be. Well, Obama has his. he and his family are set for life, and he probably will always pay his fair share of taxes on the money he makes lecturing and writing books for the rest of his life. If corporations like Google and GE and Apple and big pharm, etc., paid their fair share instead of keeping their money hidden away up their assholes through "legal" means (Courtesy of the GOP anti-regulatory interference, once again money in politics i.e. Heritage Foundation and their ilk) that would go a long way towards closing the gap a bit between the rich and poor. After all, if all the poor were middle class and had universal health care, they probably wouldn't give a shit how rich the rich got and what stupid shenanigans and crimes they committed to get there. I know I wouldn't. I have bigger fish to fry. If I had a car and a house and I wasn't scraping in poverty every day I wouldn't bother worrying so much about some rich piggies getting over like fat rats. But I do worry because not only do they break every ethical law of human nature and break real laws so much and get away with it (because they OWN the system) but it hurts the little people, who are 99% of society..and the plants..and the air...and the food...and the water..and everything they touch turns to shit which we have to clean up. Now it is un-cleanable, the damage is permanent. The people they hurt are dying and miserable and most will not recover. It gets me pondering that if they gave a fraction of a shit about anything it would be in their own best interest to compromise and pay taxes fairly to help fund programs that improve the human and natural environment, and hell, even the ECONOMICAL environment they seem to care so much about, and reduce the deficit they claim to care about (but they don't care about the deficit). In other words, if the 99% weren't getting so TOTALLY screwed by the 1%..like they settled for 10 billion instead of 5, like 3 cars instead of 20, like 1 yacht instead of 7... people could have a piece of the pie, or even of The American Dream, nationally and internationally. College would be free, like in France. Doctors would be free, like in England, where the doctors are happy with 200K a year plus bonuses for keeping their patients health stats up to par...Sick people could have health vacations like in France and Sweden. If my universal health care doctor just wrote me a prescription for a free health vacation and I could not be bankrupted again by medical bills, and my kids were going to university free, do you think I would spend my time marching and complaining (and sending money to progressive PACS) that some white collar criminal somewhere is bending a rule or two? No, I would probably just live, and leave that to Elizabeth Warren, because it's her job, not mine. Sure, out of habit, I would stay in touch and make sure they didn't fuck up too badly, you know, the money piggies. Why can't the 1% see that? Warren Buffet sees it, but he is a rare example. I am working on my own plans for an organization, that cooperates with other organizations, that polices the greedy and mean assholes of the world in a multitude of ways, and helps those less fortunate directly at the same time. It's sort of like a do-gooder fix-it-all-up MI5, with a side order of the Peace Corps, with a side order of Doctors Without Borders/Free Health Clinics. It will be mostly funded by millionaires, who receive do-gooder points for contributing, and by anyone else who contributes in money, material and labor. I don't have a name for it yet, but I started writing it with a temporary name that is too silly to mention. I will post it and try to go viral with it when it is complete. Several years from now. It's BIG. Anyway, if Obama approves the XL Pipeline I will officially and finally drop out of the Democratic party. I know that they are so lame that they don't deserve to have me now, but that is where I draw the line. That will make it or break it. It is finally where The president can show his true colors. Like the former President said, you are either with us or you are against us. So that is the test. He doesn't have to run for office ever again. he and his family are set for life, and for the lives of the next few generations just from money attained from fame and connections. My wife said that Obama might be afraid that someone, someone on the INSIDE, might shoot him, like, not the usual garden variety loons that threaten him every day for just being a "black" president. But like the big money people, who are far more dangerous because of their access. Short of being afraid that bullets will fly toward the family, what does Obama possibly have to fear in saving the climate and the planet by nixing the pipeline? The oil pigs will be mad? He even noted that it would provide like 50 jobs and he started plugging natural gas in his climate speech. bad bad bad. Fracking. Not a good sign. So obviously he has friends in Gas. But is he greedy? I hope not. If he is, then he is a very good actor acting the part of someone who basically gives a shit for the orphan and the widow. Sometimes I feel sorry for him. Like a Daddy that is surrounded by brats. Deaf , retarded brats who are greedy and violent and racist and homophobic and live to tell another lie at the expense of whoever is competing with them, or whoever is different. More so, I feel sorry for myself and my family and the 99% all over the world, and the unfortunate people oppressed by Sharia law. Or Chrstianfacism-style Sharia like we have here in the NC Sate legislature where I unfortunately live. It is good to see the OWS movie. It gives me heart. People helping people because it's the right thing to do, and to stand in contrast to the money pigs. And now, moving on to my next rant...

Make sure you include the following info:
Goldman Sachs owns Education Management Corp 41%. They installed a culture into a company that caused it to ruin lives.
EDMC owns the Art Institutes "AI" all over the country.
These links are about EDMC's History and how they got to become the revenue hounds and deceptive scamsters they are today:

We do have courts of law in the US. Sue them if you think they behaved criminally. Holding a mock trial will only make us look petty and arrogant. If you want to march to Goldman Sachs or protest outside their doors, I support you. If you want to sue them, that's great. But if you want to vent your anger and pretend it is justice, then you make a mockery of justice and I don't support that.

This is not a judicial action as i read it. It is political, and meant to send one more message to those who set policy. It is meant to discredit the big banks, and their political influence and refusal to make structural changes in how they do business. Their system was a time bomb, it blew up, now we are given another time bomb. Let's at least try to wet the fuse a little.

should send the above to Attorney General Holder
dont forget Geithner and Bernanke were authors of financial plan
to save banks by printing money and charging the 99% the debt for saving them - excuse was "the banks will loan money" save financial system from collapse" - never happened.
On top of this Geithner engaged in "obstruction of justice" by going around to every regulator and demanding they take it easy on the banks.
AG of New York seems to be doing something. But SEC merely fined Goldman Sachs while AG Holder is MIA. Top executives Blannkfein down
deserve jail sentences and enough fines to return OUR money to OUR
treasury. Time that Congress woke up and threw out Private Federal Reseve and took OUR money printing presses away from Fed Reserve which is not a govt agency but a consortium of private banks.
HOLDER/OBAMA where's the action?

Heh, doesn't sound like an actual trial, with a march to goldman sachs after the verdict is read.... maybe if they are found "not guilty", you'd march there to tell them you're sorry.

You guys have it all wrong, it wasn't goldman sachs who deregulated the banking industry and the banks bailouts, it was the government. You should be marching in DC on the white house and on the houses of congress.

Yes, GS isn't the only or even main culprit. But what is wrong with marching on them? All of these banks should be political toxic waste right now. They are not going to regulate themselves. The more people marching on them, the more likely politicians will join the charge.

The movement is about MORE than the financial meltdown. And the attorney generals are working on prosecuting those who have committed illegal acts (again, there is plenty of documented proof of this). Prosecution, if successful, will punish those who were involved. However, it will not change laws. The movement is working to add back the regulations that were taken away that allowed this to happen. Prosecution and changing laws/adding regulation are two different processes.

Then why isn't the protest focused more on the politicians than the businesses?

Here's a pretty good article detailing how both administrations fell down on the job ( and let's not forget the SEC where employees were found to have been watching porn instead of enforcing regulations!).

keep up the good work! If we scream loud and long enough our government will be forced to do something about this twisted system or risk ending up like egypt and libya! If history's told me anything it's that a government can only ignore its people for so long before they stand up and fight!

I has been stated that OWS has no goal. Below please find a suggested goal:

Let it be hereby made law that, in such case that the unemployment rate exceeds 6.5%, the Treasury shall borrow, from each individual who files a return with the IRS, whatever funds are necessary for the functioning of the government and in excess of taxpayer proceeds; such funds to be loaned from the Federal Reserve to the taxpayers of record for that year and in such a manner as not to raise inflation above a rate to be determined by the Federal Reserve; net proceeds to be paid to the filers of record.
The big banks have been doing that (borrowing money from the Fed and lending it to the Treasury) and making tons of money doing it. Why not let the taxpayers in on the action? After all, money given to the growing ranks of the poor gets immediatley shoveled into the economy while money given to the banks, as we have seen, sits in a bank vault. You would, in effect, kill three birds with one stone: providing funds to run the country, stimulating the economy, and redistributing wealth to those who actually create it, rather than those who skim their share off the top (actually top 90%).

--
It's a long way from the first step of the yellow brick road to Oz.

Love it, very imaginative. I think you guys should also consult Robert Reich & Paul Krugman as Spitzer has suggested, they can offer you a great perspective on how to leverage power using the mass of the 99%.

Chart of Who Owns the Federal Reserve
Chart 1 reveals the linear connection between the Rothschilds and the Bank of England, and the London banking houses which ultimately control the Federal Reserve Banks through their stockholdings of bank stock and their subsidiary firms in New York. The two principal Rothschild representatives in New York, J. P. Morgan Co., and Kuhn,Loeb & Co. were the firms which set up the Jekyll Island Conference at which the Federal Reserve Act was drafted, who directed the subsequent successful campaign to have the plan enacted into law by Congress, and who purchased the controlling amounts of stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1914.
http://obama-regime.blogspot.com/2010/04/are-patients-running-asylum-chart-of.html

I'm confused, the hearing is later today, November third? This "hearing" hasn't been held but you're already talking like you've decided the guilt of Goldman Sachs. Why bother with a kangaroo court? There won't be a defense, it wouldn't matter to you if there were one, you've already decided. You also have a jury drawn exclusively from a pool of people that have a real or imagined grudge against the financial system. Why not move right on to the guillotine phase of this proceeding? It's not like anyone is worried about actual justice. If there is a case bring it to the justice department, or a DA. If there were actual laws broken use the system and stop posturing for the fools that signed ARMs or got into homes they couldn't afford.

Throwing stones like this is a lot easier though when compared with actually doing real work for change. Who other then TV writers knew things could be done so quickly? Just gather together a bunch of self serving horror stories and half truths, accept them as evidence, them claim a judgement against the firm you already know is guilty. Just like a story, you've already got the end written too.

On April 28, 2003, every major US investment bank, including Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, Lehman Brothers Holdings, J.P. Morgan Chase, UBS Warburg, and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, were found to have aided and abetted efforts to defraud investors. The firms were fined a total of $1.4 billion dollars by the SEC, triggering the creation of a Global Research Analyst Settlement Fund.

In May, 2003, the SEC disclosed that several “brokerage firms paid rivals that agreed to publish positive reports on companies whose shares..they issued to the public. This practice made it appear that a throng of believers were recommending these companies' shares.” This was false. “From 1999 through 2001, for example, one firm paid about $2.7 million to approximately 25 other investment banks for these so-called research guarantees, regulators said. Nevertheless, the same firm boasted in its annual report to shareholders that it had come through investigations of analyst conflicts of interest with its ‘reputation for integrity’ maintained.”

On September 4, 2003, a major investment bank, Goldman Sachs, admitted that it had violated anti-fraud laws. Specifically, the firm misused material, nonpublic information that the US Treasury would suspend issuance of the 30-year bond. The firm agreed to “pay over $9.3 million in penalties.” On April 28, 2003, the same firm was found to have “issued research reports that were not based on principles of fair dealing and good faith .. contained exaggerated or unwarranted claims.. and/or contained opinions for which there were no reasonable bases.” The firm was fined $110 million dollars, for a total of $119.3 million dollars in fines in six months.

On January 25, 2005, “the Securities and Exchange Commission announced the filing in federal district court of separate settled civil injunctive actions against Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated (Morgan Stanley) and Goldman, Sachs & Co. (Goldman Sachs) relating to the firms' allocations of stock to institutional customers in initial public offerings (IPOs) underwritten by the firms during 1999 and 2000.”

On April 11, 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced “charges against individuals involved in widespread and brazen international schemes of serial insider trading that yielded at least $6.7 million of illicit gains. The schemes were orchestrated by..a research analyst in the Fixed Income division of Goldman Sachs, and a former employee of Goldman Sachs.”

On October 16, 2009 — the Securities and Exchange Commission “charged billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and his New York-based hedge fund advisory firm Galleon Management LP with engaging in a massive insider trading scheme that generated more than $25 million in illicit gains.”

On April 16, 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission “charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter.”

This is part of the problem I have with your slogan "we are the 99%"... since Fox gets the lions share of the ratings for news - then much of the 99% you claim to represent actually watches that channel..but here you are calling on the 99% to go march on them....instead of on Washington which has an approval rating below 20%?

Goldman Sachs played a pivotal role in the Great Depression and then again during the Great Recession. My vote is to dissolve their business. This firm has violated the trust of multiple generations. They are GUILTY of fraud, theft, and contributing to the corruption of governments. Also, shame of Senator Carl Levin for not having the intelligence and conviction to prosecute Lloyd Blankfein. As time progresses, Blankfein makes Levin look like a Schmuck!

The government works for Goldman Sachs, and other corporations that exert their influence via their money. So it is the marriage of the two. Currently government is not of the people, by the people, for the people, it is of the drug companies, oil companies, financial corporations, etc..., and by the same and for the same. This is about getting back to a democracy, and maybe in another form. Who knows where this movement will take us but it will not stop moving!!!

Because our Government actually legislates and develops policy and it's with those two things that this thing can be stopped. Lets go right to the source of the problem. If you want to fix this thing that's what we are going to have to do.

The problem in Washington exists to serve these international financial companies. Why do you think we have a bunch of talking heads screaming about 'Obamacare' instead of talking about the fact that health care costs have skyrocketed while the actual health of the average person is declining? Medical and pharmaceutical companies don't want to talk about posting record profits at a time when the 99% can't afford basic medical care or insurance.
Politicians want to talk about a whole lot of things that are supposed to demonstrate their commonality with the common man. Then they take campaign contributions from these behemoth companies and return the favor by subsidizing giant corporations who send jobs offshore. They subsidize high fructose corn syrup and GMO grain. This is how a $500,000 campaign contribution turns into billions, if not trillions of profits for these corporations and an entire country full of unhealthy, overweight, unemployed, angry people who are swimming in debt and have essentially no options and no hope. Do you really think that going after the people currently in office is going to rid the world of charismatic, clean-living, photogenic, highly electable jackasses who will take your vote and sell the country to these companies? I've got news for you:
These companies have all the time in the world. A four year political cycle isn't even a long nap for them. You could vote in 100% new politicians and these companies would still control the government. I was born (founded?) in 1979. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869. I am just one of the 99% and all I have to offer a politician is my vote. They are the 1% and they can offer politicians press, money, power, influence, and essentially ensure the re-election of a politician willing to vote their way, regardless of what the 99% want. The politicians are the face of the problem, but these corporate criminals are the beating heart of the beast.

Very well said!! So glad this generation has awoken, and has given us older folks a renewed sense of hope for this country. I have been advocating for many causes in my life but saving this country and the world is the cause of causes. Together we can do it!!

I agree, our government only works for the 1%, the have been purchased by the 1%. And yes, of course they are looking for a return on their investment. If they weren't they wouldn't invest.

I see it the other way around, the face is corporate America, but they are only acting in their own narrow interest. It's our government that should be acting differently. They are the criminals, who take the bribes and create legislation and form policies that help the 1% at the rest of our expense.

I agree with you. The government regulators are owned by the banks. They are tax payer payed but did not do their jobs. They did not guard the hen house like they are suppose to be doing instead they are helping the fox. I think the protesters will get to it eventually and protest the government.

Good Job of educating what the proteset is about.should send the above to Attorney General Holder
dont forget Geithner and Bernanke were involved authors of financial plan to save banks by printing money and charging the 99% the debt for saving them - excuse was "the banks will loan money" save financial system from collapse" - never happened.
On top of this Geithner engaged in "obstruction of justice" by going around to every regulator and demanding they take it easy on the banks.
AG of New York seems to be doing something. But SEC merely fined Goldman Sachs while AG Holder is MIA. Top executives of goldman sachs, Blankfein down deserve jail sentences and enough fines to return OUR money to OUR treasury. Time that Congress woke up and threw out Private Federal Reseve and took OUR money printing presses away from Fed Reserve which is not a govt agency but a consortium of private banks.
HOLDER/OBAMA where's the action?

There should have been a catch with that money - take it, and then either pay it back or completely change the board and executive management within 5 years. That's how top down works when screw ups bubble up from crooked borrowers to crooked lenders to crooked.... you get the picture. The buck stops.

Bring down the corporate bigots before it’s too late. Bring them down quick! Assemble my lovelies with haste play the trumpets of freedom for we are not going to live in the past. Our brothers from times past were forced into submission and now their children are on the same path of rolling over and allowing the longevity of this earth to be put in jeopardy. Let us not allow history to repeat its self; our government is on the path of OIL. Let us as a NATION stand up against this injustice and say, we will not submit to your oil practices there are other ways!!!!!!!!!!! We will not submit to your "meat" eating practices!!!!! We will no longer eat your pesticide and antibiotic ridden foods that clog our bodies and minds!!!!! We will not continue paying for subsidies!!!!!We will no longer allow you to blind us from what you are doing!!!!!We demand glass walls!!!!!We will not walk this earth that is rightfully ours with our heads down ignoring your greed any longer!!!!We are no lesser of people than you!!!!! We are the revolution embrace us before it’s too late for you. Life is a precious gift that everyone all man all animal shall be able to enjoy so long as this system is stopped now. .....Freedom Is Being.......Peace Love Happiness

OWS is doing the right thing. Folks in Washington better be watching! The spirit of OWS is no joke and nothing to joke about. I just hope everyone, those of OWS and those of us watching, do the right thing and vote against the bums who call themselves representatives of "we the people." The House of Representatives is filled with old folks who still protect those whom they truly represent, the rich. F them! They should be voted out of office! They should be jobless for they are useless.

Revolutions start when protesters need to submit to a trial the authorities who determined their unhappiness.
In that moment they demonstate that they don't fear nobody and nothing.
Submit to a trial then Goldman Sacks and all the other criminals who have destroyed your nation.
To day in Italy too will be realized a great demonstration against our politicians.

A people's indictment of Goldman Sachs! This is brilliant! I would not just play this up for one day. I hope it will be well formulated, and if so, should be a permanent post on all OWS sites. It should be delivered to the president and the attorney general as well. When they do not respond, then you can proceed to a higher (est) court, i.e., the 99%!

Why not also protest Republican areas? While both parties are guilty of being captured by the wealthy elite, the Republicans are far worse.

Take Eric Cantor...the poster child for government by and for the 1%. Why not take the protests to Cantor's district?? Why not impose the cost and inconvenience on the people who put him in office?? One thing for sure: They hate taxes. Why not let their tax dollars pay for dealing with the protests, instead of a city like Oakland??

I would really like to see the protests include the Republican areas that so strongly support policies that drive income inequality. Go after Boehner's district and Ryan's -- and incovenience the people who voted for a moron like Michele Bachmann. Protest in Rick Perry's back yard. Let Texas taxpayers eat the expense of dealing with it.

Also, a lot of Repubican strongholds are in the South, and protesting there will be easier in winter. Sarasota FL is supposedly the "meanest city in the USA" for the way they treat the homeless....what a great (and warm) place for a protest.

Dr. King took his protests to the South. Maybe OWS should do the same.

Finally you will not be unfairly accused of not having an agenda. This needs to be your agenda to condemn and occupy these financial institutions and the mega banks and the federal reserve. They are the cause of the economic meltdowns. They have decided where to put their monies towards and where to take the monies out. That has led to the industrialization of Asia and the de industrialization of the USA. Expose these crooks and everyone needs to get on board and provide them with financial blows by boycotting everything they are involved with worldwide. All of their investments need to fail through exposure of what those investments are and then boycotts of products and services that were financed by them.

oh rich men, wail and weep for the miseries that will come on you, for your wealth is corrupted and is rotten and your garments have been eaten by a moth. And your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you and it is going to eat your flesh. You have gathered a fire for you for the last days. Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.

The aramaic translation of James Chapter 5.

WOW! A book that was written in 60 ad talking about the timeless misuse of riches. Goldman Sachs - you will reap what you have sown. There's no way around it.

Big Banks and Wall Street Giants May Cash in Again at the Expense of “The People’’

The Big Banks and Wall Street Giants are up to no good again. They are working through government officials tied in with them, including the Federal Housing Finance Agency (which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), Timothy Geithner, head of Treasury Department (and former Wall Street poster boy), and some officials of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD which regulates FHA). Those government officials are seeking proposals from Big Banks and Wall Street Giants wherein they would buy, in multi-million dollar bulk sales, for pennies on the dollar, homes that have been foreclosed from American homeowners. They reaped unethical profits when they packaged subprime mortgages and sold them to pension plans and to “The People”. Now that those investments have gone sour, they are trying to reap unethical profits again, from “The People”, by buying the foreclosed homes for pennies on the dollar, then renting a large percentage of American houses as an absentee landlord, with headquarters on Wall Street. Act now to regulate this. Email this message to your legislators, protest lobby to fight corporate greed and to get money out of politics.

Goldman is the capital of abusing power. There guys just gave over 10Billion in Bonuses in the first 3 quarters of 2011, all while their profit was down 75%. Why, because its a casino where the fat cats win, regardless of the consequences. They give themselves billions in bonuses, and when they fail they expect the government (i.e. society) to bail them out.

We are subsidizing a casino. The banks have only gotten bigger since the crisis.

Dummy. They paid $0 bonuses in the first three quarters of 2011. And the U.S. Treasury made a nice profit on the $10B TARP investment, better return than any other investment Treasury has ever made except for JPMorgan Chase. But don't let those troublesome facts get in the way.

Seriously? Guys, if we want to be taken serious, we need to stop with these ridiculous stunts. Actions like this are why we are being passed over as loony. This is a total kangaroo court. And how can Ralph Nader, Chris Hedges, and Cornel West be experts in a financial trial? None of them have ever written about not studied the subject in a scholarly manner.

"...ridiculous stunts": economic injustice is a major grievance that will be explored by this trial. The behavior of the financial industry in our society is at the core of our current economic problems.

"Kangaroo court": In virtually every other forum available in this society, banksters like Goldman Sachs are fawned over and facilitated in every way. It is about time someone just up and told the truth about what they have done.

Regarding the qualifications of Nader (the most experienced consumer litigator of our time), Hedges (a widely respected journalist and essayist) and West (an academic expert on the causes of social injustice), I would rather have them than some "financial expert" who understands everything about the nuances of finance and nothing about social justice.

At last somebody has the balls to hold court on these fkr's. I was hopeing this day would come 20 years ago! Better late than never! You young people have redeemed my faith in humanity, I back you 100%

Brilliant, as long as we continue to practice our nonviolence. Love to all occupiers, and thank you for the long overdue message that fraud perpetrators should be brought to justice and made to repay their wrongful gains to the community they robbed.

I don't work for Goldman Sachs, but I have to say, there are a lot more evil banks out there. Many of them are not American Banks, and yet the American Public bailed them out. Most of you have never heard of them. If they don't like a US law, they simply move the offending operation back to their headquarters overseas, or to Bermuda, or Canada or London. Many are foreign banks the 99% have never heard of.

Foreign Borrowers
It wasn’t just American finance. Almost half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms. They included Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, which took $84.5 billion, the most of any non-U.S. lender, and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN), which got $77.2 billion. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG borrowed $28.7 billion, an average of $21 million for each of its 1,366 employees.
The largest borrowers also included Dexia SA (DEXB), Belgium’s biggest bank by assets, and Societe Generale SA, based in Paris, whose bond-insurance prices have surged in the past month as investors speculated that the spreading sovereign debt crisis in Europe might increase their chances of default.
The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 -- the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg -- was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

"What a dangerous path." LOL! What's dangerous about it, Jimbo? After all, it's just us little 99 percenters--what possible threat could we pose to the big, bad Masters of the Universe, hmmm? It's funny--you're full of scorn and derisiveness one minute, and fear and outrage the next. You're just a big mishmash of emotions, and it all seems directed at an allegedly disorganized band of hippies who--as we all know by now--need to "get a job." Very interesting....

You just can't satisfy some people no matter what you do. One minute people are saying "quit occupying a park and do something" then when something does get decided, it's "this is dangerous and rash. It'll sabotage the movement."

Im not scared. I am a very experienced individual. i don't want to see the movement fall apart because of ignorant people who think with passion rather than their brains, and what i am seeing is the radicals are getting desperate and are going to blow the entire movement.

Having remarks from delusional, paranoid, and hallucinating people during most of my communications with these people on their forums and 6 visits to the park, I can't ignore the evidence. Sitting in the park for 6 weeks was a symptom I chose to ignore. I can't ignore that any longer.

At first I thought they were only uninformed. I assumed a rational discussion would bear fruit. Now I can't ignore my diagnosis was dead wrong. They are out of it.

Oh, steve, get over it. You had no intention of a rational discussion - you were there to tell us "delusionals" what to do since you have all the answers. 20 people heard you browbeat them because they disagreed.

wall street protestors are disgusting descraces to america they are a bunch of pigs . i personally believe the nypd should be able to shoot down any protestor they choose becuse the protectors are a bunch of blind childish fools !

1) Get the government to issue some currency (cash -- paper or reserves at the central bank -- reserves are government issued cash central bank deposits). Government issued cash is around 5% of the currency (money) supply. The government issued currency is put into circulation by the government simply spending it.

2) The rest (95%) of the currency is issued by the private banks. Each customer loan is a new bank deposit (i.e., new currency) and increases the currency (money) supply of the economy. Note that this newly created money (currency) is put into circulation by the borrower spending it. Most currency (about 95% America's currency supply) has been borrowed into existence and when bank customer pays the loan back that amount of currency is removed from circulation. The banking system cannot go backwards (fewer net loans) as time moves on because fewer net loans means fewer currency in circulation in the economy.

Accmulation of interest charges on outstanding loans means that the currency supply must constantly increase even if it means giving out lower quality loans. Think of it like a plane flying it must fly at some minimum speed or else the plane (the banking system) will crash (i.e., banking system collapse).

3) The bankers make dam sure that the common public does not understand how the monetary system works meaning that the private banks issue 95% of the currency. This is whole another topic how they do this.

4) The system works until real economic capacity of the economy grows and debts can be serviced and interest charges paid. Most of the time the economy oscillates between boom (growth) and bust (recession) because bust is needed to clear debts and start a new lending cycle.

5) Eventually, one of these cycles goes so deep that currency supply (and demand) falls so low that too many debts become un-serviceable. The recession becomes a depression now.

6) The bankers then have to decide how to "reset" the system. One way to reset the system is to let the depression takes its course. But of course this path is very chaotic because people lose jobs and may become violent. Once most debts are cleared lending can start again and the currency supply is replenished. Wars are a good way to get initial money (currency) into an economy after a depression to get demand going again. This is the great depression scenario.

7) Another way to "reset" the system is to get the government to print too much money and spend and destroy the currency and blame it on the government. This justifies issuance of a totally new currency (note that hyperinflation clears debts) and the lending cycle can start again. This is the Weimar scenario.

8) The banking system (as is) is setup to maximize the power and influence of the global bankers and NOT for the maximum general well being of people. By the way this is a global game. This is the only system around no matter what country you are in. The global banking cartel makes sure that no competing systems are allowed to exist (so they might be copied and global bankers will lose power).

For more details on this stuff please read the following articles in order listed below:

Liberals, the reason that you cannot understand the professionalism of the police men and women is because you probably got a worthless degree like fine arts or something so you can't get a job. Now you want the government to step in and gubernatorial you money for the rest of your life because of choices YOU made. Allow me to offer my perspective and MAYBE it will make sense to you. As a police officer, you have laws that you must uphold. When someone breaks these laws, whether that be trespassing or public dedication or what have you, they HAVE to uphold the law... That's it.... You are violating laws left and right at ows. I agree with the over all message of ows but I don't think that 3/4 of the people there do. If you want something in life you need to work for it. It's time that the people of this country stop paying for the laziness of the "feeling of entitlement" revolution.

awesome, we support the new judicial by the people, the current one is OWNED by the top 1% -- don't forget about POLITICIANS that let corporate LOBBYIST write our laws and accept fat payoffs and future employment for selling out the welfare of the people. They are all GUILTY of ABUSE OF OFFICE, bribery, extortion, and ENDANGERING THE PUBLIC. Mainly pharmaceutical and energy companies are killing Americans.

should send the above to Attorney General Holder
dont forget Geithner and Bernanke were authors of financial plan
to save banks by printing money and charging the 99% the debt for saving them - excuse was "the banks will loan money" save financial system from collapse" - never happened.
On top of this Geithner engaged in "obstruction of justice" by going around to every regulator and demanding they take it easy on the banks.
AG of New York seems to be doing something. But SEC merely fined Goldman Sachs while AG Holder is MIA. Top executives Blannkfein down
deserve jail sentences and enough fines to return OUR money to OUR
treasury. Time that Congress woke up and threw out Private Federal Reseve and took OUR money printing presses away from Fed Reserve which is not a govt agency but a consortium of private banks.
HOLDER/OBAMA where's the action?

should send the above to Attorney General Holder
dont forget Geithner and Bernanke were authors of financial plan
to save banks by printing money and charging the 99% the debt for saving them - excuse was "the banks will loan money" save financial system from collapse" - never happened.
On top of this Geithner engaged in "obstruction of justice" by going around to every regulator and demanding they take it easy on the banks.
AG of New York seems to be doing something. But SEC merely fined Goldman Sachs while AG Holder is MIA. Top executives Blannkfein down
deserve jail sentences and enough fines to return OUR money to OUR
treasury. Time that Congress woke up and threw out Private Federal Reseve and took OUR money printing presses away from Fed Reserve which is not a govt agency but a consortium of private banks.
HOLDER/OBAMA where's the action?

I fully support you guys. the one thing that sticks out is the peaceful part. Cool heads will prevail here. if you can hold back the anger and allow it to be more productive it will pay off in national and global respect for the movement. The forces you are fighting have been embedded in our society for a very long time.

They do not want you to succeed but you know that.

For this movement to fully complete it's mission to clean up the corruption we see all around us, you must first start with peace. because when they become aggressive to your movement and you make no action toward them then you win by default.

You don't need a tin foil hat to figure out the best way to destroy this movement is infiltrate it and destroy it from within, these people need to be removed they are not for your cause but payed to destroy it.

You are growing in numbers. but they still have the guns. If they arrest you for minor offenses then they can't make you felons. but once your a felon you loose your right to vote. so watch that plan. they are using that tactic as we speak. the next step they are most likely planning is (if winter doesn't stop you) to create the image you are drug addicts and they will use any pot smoking based comments to do this. remove any reference to drug usage as a way to protect yourselves.

if they fail as they have been as of late the violence against you will escalate. sometimes to achieve a goal like yours you must allow yourself to be sacrificed for your cause. remain peaceful and report the violence they use agaist you. God speed.

This is so incredible! What you are doing in NY is wonderful. Thank you and everyone else who is supporting the occupy movement. We are growing. We are many. We are not going anywhere. We ARE taking our planet back. WE ARE THE 99%!

Isn't this what they call a kangaroo court? This announcement for the trial implies he is guilty before the trial has even begun. Is that what US citizens want their court systems to be like? Sounds like a mob court to me, and not a good display of OWS direct democracy which is supposed to be a fair system.

protests like this are great to motivate people and get the word out, but really, Goldman Sachs will not care. to them, this is merely some kind of street theater they may or may not hear about after the fact.
the only thing that will create real change in our society is changing the laws that allow corporations to function the way they do. unfortunately, that means working within the current political system.
and, to change the topic, the vast majority of people at ows are not doing drugs.

Why not also protest Republican areas? While both parties are guilty of being captured by the wealthy elite, the Republicans are far worse.

Take Eric Cantor...the poster child for government by and for the 1%. Why not take the protests to Cantor's district?? Why not impose the cost and inconvenience on the people who put him in office?? One thing for sure: They hate taxes. Why not let their tax dollars pay for dealing with the protests, instead of a city like Oakland??

I would really like to see the protests include the Republican areas that so strongly support policies that drive income inequality. Go after Boehner's district and Ryan's -- and incovenience the people who voted for a moron like Michele Bachmann. Protest in Rick Perry's back yard. Let Texas taxpayers eat the expense of dealing with it.

Also, a lot of Repubican strongholds are in the South, and protesting there will be easier in winter. Sarasota FL is supposedly the "meanest city in the USA" for the way they treat the homeless....what a great (and warm) place for a protest.

Dr. King took his protests to the South. Maybe OWS should do the same.

Why not also protest Republican areas? While both parties are guilty of being captured by the wealthy elite, the Republicans are far worse.

Take Eric Cantor...the poster child for government by and for the 1%. Why not take the protests to Cantor's district?? Why not impose the cost and inconvenience on the people who put him in office?? One thing for sure: They hate taxes. Why not let their tax dollars pay for dealing with the protests, instead of a city like Oakland??

I would really like to see the protests include the Republican areas that so strongly support policies that drive income inequality. Go after Boehner's district and Ryan's -- and incovenience the people who voted for a moron like Michele Bachmann. Protest in Rick Perry's back yard. Let Texas taxpayers eat the expense of dealing with it.

Also, a lot of Repubican strongholds are in the South, and protesting there will be easier in winter. Sarasota FL is supposedly the "meanest city in the USA" for the way they treat the homeless....what a great (and warm) place for a protest.

Dr. King took his protests to the South. Maybe OWS should do the same.

I don't know if I am for or against "occupy wall street" but I happen to notice that "occupy wall street" is always considered the 99%. Why is it then that people in "occupy wall street" are really a very small percentage of the actual people. Also, it is not like 99% of the people agree with "occupy wall street".

Well, consider it a campaign slogan - "we stand in favor of public policy that benefits that 99% of the populace whose opportunities have been steadily eroded in the interests of the top income bracket, regardless of whether or not any individual among that 99% agrees with us fully; we sincerely hope that they will and are attempting to take steps to address their concerns." Technically, we're also not putting GS on "trial" today, since we already agree on their guilt and, even if we didn't we would have no power to enforce any conclusion we come to. But that's not the point - the point is to make a gesture to increase awareness of our concerns.

mmm... seems to me the verdict is already in... not sure the point of this exercise... I have a distaste for vigilante justice ... reminds me of the witch hunts... and I'm not a friend to Goldman Sachs, but this is drama for drama sake.

The point is education. Due to the utter failure of the mass media, which continually distracts our citizens with propaganda and shiny objects, many people are uninformed about the crimes of Goldman Sachs. It is time they were informed, and this trial and march are one way of doing that.

What are you going to do after the trial? Hang them? Are you guys supporting a anarchist state? Are you saying we don't need those laws anymore? You are right - education is key - hand out free DVD's of Inside Job. Work to get money out of politics. These are key issues that you are starting to 'skirt' around because everyone is so dedicated to letting anything go... you're becoming what you say you hate about Wall Street- a 'free-for-all' based on your own agenda. The idea of 'we don't have any goals' isn't going to create change - it creates poetry and it creates songs and it creates art, but it doesn't dismantle the corruption.

We can't live in a society where the laws to uphold sheer lunacy are being dismissed. We can't live in a society where greed is rewarded. Eric Holder has a taste for no justice! The supreme court (the worse use of supreme) is paid handsomely to look the other way. Wall Street is the wild west and there's about 300 million new sheriffs in town. Capish?

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I dislike Goldman Sachs, but as long as the Federal Reserve is intact this will continue to happen. Goldman Sachs was not responsible for the credit expansion and artificially low interest rates that led to the housing boom. Goldman Sachs did not force taxpayers to bail them out. Goldman Sachs should have been allowed to fail. There is a rotating door between the major banks and the Federal Reserve. As long as the Fed is left intact the 1% will continue to drink champagne and laugh in the 99%s faces. That being said &#%^ Goldman Sachs and I still support a march against them.

Uh no, they paid back the "loans" with free fractional banking via the back fed window. Obviously you don't know what you are talking about, or you are being disingenuous or both, just like the psuedo economist salesmen on the "Street." So you never heard of repos, the shadow banking system, derrivatives that were supposed to be collateralized but were not, outright mortgage fraud,
betting agaist investments you just sold to your clients, et. al. ad nauseaum?

So, I suppose you like the idea of the 1% paying little if any taxes so that they can receive government contracts (socialism for the rich) that they lobby for and many times receive without competition through sole source contracts and "change orders." Sixty percent of every federal discretionary dollar goes to the war machine. So the rich pay little if any tax, are subsidized by the rest of us and then we run deficits so that we borrow the money from those whom pay no taxes and are subsidized by us. "War is a racket!" - General Smedly Butler, Head, US Marines - Two Medals of Honor

top 1% pays pays the lionshare of the taxes in this country (~40%?).
TARP was fully repaid by all recipient banks, gov't got preferred return and exercisable warrants, (C is a good example gov't cashed in big).
I don't understand how some people here think that TARP was never repaid and that the banks knew what would happen. Foolishness.
The government is the one to blame, they encouraged the loosening of lending standards and backed all the no-doc loans.

Strike Two! : "Generally, banks that repaid CPP funds did so with cash raised from earnings, or by raising new outside capital. In finance and banking you always have to read the fine print. And if you go back to the report, you'll notice that the fine print accompanying the entries for each of the above exits makes reference either to Footnote 49 or Footnote 50. Footnote 49 reads: "Repayment pursuant to Title VII, Section 7001(g) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 using proceeds received in connection with the institution's participation in the Small Business Lending Fund." Footnote 50 reads: "Repayment pursuant to Title VII, Section 7001(g) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — part of the repayment amount obtained from proceeds received in connection with the institution's participation in the Small Business Lending Fund."
All of which is to say that these banks repaid cash owed to a program run by the Treasury Department by. . . borrowing from another program run by the Treasury Department."

@billymorav - I read your first link and agree with what it says, In fact, I've been pretty consistent in my belief that this occupy movement is occupying the wrong place. Corporations can only control politics as long as the politicians accept their "bribes". And what is really squeezing middle America is all the hidden taxes that we pay on all the goods we purchase...ie. the 143% excise tax on peanut butter - an American staple and the taxes on all our insurance policies - home, auto and health. The first step in equalizing share of wealth is a total rewriting of the tax code........

As to your second point - the article you quoted and provided a link to went further - a point that I think is missed in the part you chose to quote....it goes along with the first sentence "Generally, banks that repaid CPP funds did so with cash raised from earnings, or by raising new outside capital." Here's the followup to what you quoted:

"The Small Business Lending Fund was created last fall as part of the Small Business Jobs Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation passed last fall. The idea was to make cash available to smallish community banks (those with assets of $10 billion or less), and then give them incentives or rewards for making small-business loans, defined in this fact sheet as "certain loans of up to $10 million to businesses with up to $50 million in annual revenues."

Here's how it works. As with the CPP, Treasury will lend to the banks by buying preferred shares. As with CPP, the shares bear a five percent annual dividend rate. (However, Treasury won't receive warrants in exchange for making the loans, as it did under CPP). So far, so similar. But here's the difference. Banks that have boosted, or will boost, their lending to small businesses will pay a lower interest rate. "If a bank's small business lending increases by 10% or more, then the rate will fall to as low as 1%. Banks that increase their lending by amounts less than 10% can benefit from rates set between 2% and 4%." Meanwhile, those that take the cash and don't lend will be punished. "If lending does not increase in the first two years, however, the rate will increase to 7%. After 4.5 years, the rate will increase to 9% if the bank has not already repaid the SBLF funding."

The real issue is that this paying back with borrowed funds takes place only in the smaller banks that received CPP funds from TARP. The larger banks - the real lenders - paid back their TARP funds in order to get out from under the hand of the government - and therefore, there is no incentive for them to begin lending again..........And in many cases, those bigger lenders were forced by the government to accept the TARP funds in the first place.

Adding to this is that some of these smaller banks are using the Small Business Jobs Act (therefore the fund) to ALSO get out from under their TARP obligations..........thereby getting out of the requirement to lend to small businesses who DRIVE JOB CREATION.

So, again, who is ultimately responsible for all of this? Those who are writing our laws leaving these great big loopholes there for the lawyers and accountants to get around all the regulations imposed......

Well, what has changed so far? BofA got rid of its $5.00 ATM fee? Wow. Big deal. That really put a whole lot of folks back to work didn't it?

Believe as you want to that occupying wall street is going to change things - unless you decide that you are going to vandalize and actually murder those CEO's how exaclty will your peaceful protest change anything?

Until you change the people who are writing the rules and regulations and the laws of the land, you will never have change. Look at the hope and change President...how'd that work out when you left the same people in all the congress who have been there writing all those laws and tax codes and loopholes around him?

The legal system has protected too many people that we don't like. It is time for revolutionary justice. Can we get a consensus around beheadings as suitable punishment? I am not committed to the idea and we could totally do something more humane like drowning if you guys want. As long as we can find consensus on the acceptable form of capital punishment I think we are good to go with this thing. Right?

I think beheading is much more humane than drowning. much quicker. hanging is also quick if done right. drawing and quartering, now that is what you wanna bring out if want someone to suffer. thoughts?

I think the banksters should just be required to work at real jobs and worry about the bills like normal people. Or if they refuse that, put them on a remote island where they can't do any further damage to society. In general, I am against the death penalty, which sooner or later will always claim the life of someone innocent of the crime they are accused of.

I am sorry, but remote island is not one of the options as it is not a capital punishment. The options being looked at are: beheading, crucifixion, drowning or burning. I would really like to get a consensus around beheadings. Thoughts?

What we need are tough criminal laws and sentencing for Corporate crimes against society. This is something the right wing pro-business types can agree to, since they are the ones insisting on mandatory sentencing and harsh prosecution of individuals.

So why not

Mandatory Death Penalty For CEOs and Board Directors for Crimes Against Society.

This will help businesses self regulate.

Eg. Tepco, the Nuclear power plant operator in Fukushima.. I would say death penalty immediately for the CEOs and board members. Maybe Drawn and Quartered to serve as a deterrent. The death penalty for CEOs will make such crises a once in a lifetime event.

hey, while we're becoming them, why not take all their money, and set things up so they're the ones with the higher tax rates and we're the ones with the house in the hamptons?!
you know, just like a see-saw.

Trial in abesentia, or would you prefer idefinite detention at a black site while never being charged? Or how about a military tribunal in a foreign country or better yet, execution via secret presidental finding? All now have precedent in the US. Reap the whirlwind!

how about considering that they didn't actually break any laws, they aren't terrorists, they can't be put in jail, and they are representative of US citizen, you try a real trial. Amazing. You peoples idea of democracy is really fucked up is that's your idea of a trail

Even in Nuremburg, the only thing they could get the Nazis on what crimes against humanity. Since we don't have death camps in America, and I don't think the government would pick Goldman Sachs to run it even if we did, what is your analogy? what back door morality?

WOW 8% that's amazing. It's almost as if the had an economy 1/21 the size of our and that if you take that into calculation, their growth rate is actually less than a quarter of Americas. But your right, that sounds like a good plan.

Instead, try some Leontief sectorial analysis with some good ol' South American input/output analysis and you will see how Argentina freed up about 20% of their productive capacity by rediverting the flow away from the banker parasite digesitve track which apparently goes right up yours. Oh, and you'll need a little calculus but that might be a tall order for you regurgitation boy! Here's a clue, try some critical thinking instead of knee jerk knuckle dragging. Psycopathology is such a waste!

Argentina Economy 2011, CIA World Factbook
Argentina Economy 2011, CIA World ... Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Argentina Economy 2011 ...
www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/argentina/argentina_economy.html

28. The Verboten Story of Argentina’s Post-Default Economic ...
Even notice nothing is ever said in the mainstream media about Argentina’s economy, save that it had a big default? You’d never know the following: jackpotinvestor.com/2011/blogs/10/23/the-verboten-story...

How about you look at Agrentina's inflation rate. You might no understand what that is yet but one day you will. We have a inflation rate about 1-2%, they have theirs hanging around 18-20%. Now if you want America to have inflation that high, by all means procede but if you get some common sence and realize that high inflation rates aren't good and that banks help regulate inflation, you should, I say should because I can see what you are very uncapable of doing, see that telling banks fo fuck off is a very bad idea.

You can see "what I'm very incapable of doing? How is that ignoramus? You apparently have a reading comprehension problem along a clear lack of ability for critical thought. I'll bet you got a lot of little gold stars for telling teach exactly what she wanted to hear! Good Boy!

I'll help you out since you appear to be having trouble articulating the obvious: It's very possible to tell the banks to go do themselves from a sovereign position (And, BTW it's not "sovereign debt" we are discussing here) but not so much when talking EMPIRE. I'll agree that EMPIRE skirts the sovereign and inalienable right's of the people and therefore it's interwoven and fraudulent manipulation of the productive economy illigitimately serves the few. And, that this interwoven shadow economy (know what a repo is?) will bring down the false scafolding? Of course! That is what you are afraid of.

Do you know anything about scalability? Talk about reductionism... Your econometric models are pretty much worthless representations of present day reality. And besides who ever said that bean counting financiers are real economists anyway?